Adding Options to the Right Click Menu

One of the serious drawbacks regarding Windows file management tools is that there is no option to copy a file or folder directly from the right click context menu. Neither is there an option to move a file or folder from the right click context menu.

You have to copy / cut a file or folder, open the target directory and then paste it. This can be very time consuming, when you are working with dozens of documents, images, files and want a quick and easy option to move files across different directories.

What if you can get the following two options in your Windows Context menu?

Right clicking a file and choosing the two entries will open a file copy dialog box, simply choose the target directory and you are done copying or moving the file to the specific directory.

Here are the steps that needs to be done, the process is exactly same for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows7:

Backing up The Current Windows Registry

First perform a full backup of your current Windows registry, this will be required if you want to revert the changes later. To do this, carefully follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Click Start menu and type in regedit in the search box.

2. This will open the Registry Editor Window, click the File menu and choose the Export option as shown below:

3. This will open the Export Registry File dialog window. Enter a name of the registry backup and click Save.

4. Now that you have a backup of the Windows registry, it’s time to add the Copy to Folder and Move to Folder entries.

Adding the Copy to Folder and Move to Folder Entries To Windows Registry

1. Open the Registry Editor window, as discussed in the above section.

2. Click the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT dropdown arrow.

3. Scroll down and you will find an entry named AllFilesystemObjects

4. Under AllFilesystemObjects – you will see a sub entry named shellex. Under shellex, you will see two sub entries – Contextmenuhandlers and Propertysheethandlers.

Double click the Contextmenuhandlers entry to expand it.

5. Right click on the Contextmenuhandlers entry and select New > Key as shown below:

6. This will create a new entry, name it the following (don’t forget the brackets)

{C2FBB630-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Here is how it’s going to look after you have entered the above name to the entry:

7. After this, hit the Enter key and the Copy to Folder entry will be added to Windows right click context menu. To test it, right click a file and you will see the new options.

8. Now, it’s time to add the Move to Folder entry in Windows registry. Switch back to the Registry editor window and right click ContextMenuHandlers key, as shown below:

9. This will create a new entry, name it the following (don’t forget the brackets)

{C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Here is how it’s going to look after you have entered the above name to the entry:

10. Now hit the Enter key from keyboard and it’s done. The Move to Folder entry has been successfully added to the Windows registry. To test it, right click any file on Windows Explorer and you will see two new options – Copy to Folder and Move to Folder.

Removing the Options Later

Later, you might want to remove the two options from Windows right click menu. There are two ways to achieve this:

– Double click the registry file backed up earlier. This will restore the earlier settings to Windows registry and thus the options will be automatically removed. – Otherwise, you can open the Windows registry editor and navigate to the corresponding keys one by one. Right click each key and click Delete.

If you have a registry backup, it’s advised to continue with the first step. If not, you can manually delete the keys as well.

It’s much easier to move or copy files to different Windows folders using the right click options. Give it a try!

Amit, there’s another way to “store” registry entries, just in case you change your mind later:

In the key that you created, {C2FBB631-2971-11D1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}, I you just put a period at the front of the entry, it will disappear from the menu — but still be there so that later if you want it back, just remove the period!

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